Two more on CW

Worked Greece (SV1CQN) and Nicaragua (H70ORO) on 20m CW this evening. That makes 21 DXCC countries worked on CW for me. Baby steps.

I'm starting to feel more comfortable dropping my call when I hear a DX station. I think my biggest problem at this point is being able to hear the DX. I mean, I might hear something when I pull up a cluster spot, but I ask myself whether I could really be able to copy my own call if he sent it back to me. Most of the time the answer is no. The noise level here is debilitating, a constant S8 or S9 with the noise blanker off. DSP noise reduction doesn't offer much help with that kind of noise level. Copying CW is difficult enough for me without having the double-handicap of competing with my neighbor's plasma TV and the noisy power lines and transformer that are just 10-20 feet away from my antenna. So I pick my battles carefully, try to go for the stations which are relatively pile-up free and easily copyable, and do the Happy Dance every time I put a new one in the log.